In July, when Michigan opened a new bridge to Canada, the two countries were supposed to cut the ribbon together. Canada called that off and held its own ceremony on its side, citing the president’s tariff threats. 

Canada is Michigan’s biggest customer. The cars built here are still assembled on both sides of the Detroit River, where that new bridge stands. And right now the two countries are taxing each other’s goods.

At the top of the state, you can already see what that costs. Crossings at the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge fell nearly 24% in 2025 — roughly 270,000 fewer trips, a steeper drop than at any other Michigan crossing. The bridge authority estimates the area lost at least $82.9 million in spending, most of it on the Michigan side. 

The legal ground has shifted, too. In February, the Supreme Court ruled that the emergency powers law “does not grant the President the power to unilaterally impose tariffs of indefinite scope”, voiding many tariffs.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania quantified the refunds owed to affected companies at up to $175 billion. However, the tariffs squeezing Michigan survived: steel, aluminum and autos, plus a 50% duty on a long list of Canadian goods.

That begs the question: who in Michigan is paying for tariffs?

Jason Miller, the Eli Broad Professor in the Department of Supply Chain Management at Michigan State University, joined host Robyn Vincent to follow the money.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand. Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or NPR, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have thoughts? Email the show at metro@wdet.org.

More stories from The Metro

The Van Buren Township Planning Commission is preparing to vote on the final site for a massive data center proposed by Google on Wednesday, Oct. 14.

Some residents fear the facility could harm the environment and raise utility costs for customers.

The township’s top official, Supervisor Kevin McNamara, says Van Buren has little choice but to consider the data center, since it meets the necessary zoning requirements.

But McNamara says that has not stopped people from giving him an earful about the plan.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

Kevin McNamara: Every single day for the last ten months and every night. And every church parking lot and every elected official from Lansing to Washington to Wayne County.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: Pressing you on both sides, or are they always for or against it?

KM: A lot of them just don’t seem to understand. The data centers are legal.

They say “Just say no.” You can’t just say no. If you do, you go to court like Saline did. And the court decides what to do and how to build it. As badly as maybe I didn’t want a data center, I’m not letting a judge in downtown Detroit build our data center.

We’re gonna build the best damn data center we possibly can. So you basically gotta take all the abuse and get what’s best for your community.

We didn’t get a great hand to be dealt with. We zoned data centers into industrial areas. We have one of the largest data centers in the state in J.P. Morgan Chase.

We have another one across the street. We knew what they were and we said we want them in industrial areas. They have morphed since 2018 when we said that into these hyperscales.

Still, if they were going to be in zoning it would be in an industrial area. You can’t not zone them. Saline did not zone them and that’s how they lost in court. The judge took over and decided how to build Saline’s data center. That wasn’t gonna happen here.

QK: Under the zoning laws, you really couldn’t turn down the facility if it met certain criteria?

KM: No, you can’t. Your best case scenario would be to have the judge broker a deal with all parties.

Your worst case scenario is that you go into a long legal fight, you lose, the property owner gets millions, the developer gets millions. Perhaps the data center people want money, too. But now you’ve lost and you’ve got to take the next data center. I darn sure love Google compared to any of the other ones out there. I don’t want BlackRock. I don’t want mergered ones. I don’t want highly leveraged ones.

QK: Why do you like Google?

KM: I’ve traveled the country. I’ve called the communities, I’ve called the schools. I think the best answer was a school in Virginia that said, “Which data center?” I said, “Google.” They said, “You’re fine, they’re great.” They’re already working with our schools. They own the Discovery Channel, they’ve just gifted the Discovery Channel curriculum K-12 over to our school system.

They had an open house for STEM day. I saw seven-year-olds creating wormholes in the middle of the classroom. I saw kids that were ten years old coding robots and they were being taught by discovery instructors and discovery videos how to do this. It’s just amazing the capabilities they have.

They’ve got robotics teams that teach and kids walk out of the classroom with their own robot that they built and they coded. We got the right partner. They actually do care about the community and they care about their reputation. And I believe that they’re gonna do a really nice job for us in Van Buren.

QK: There have been concerns raised in Van Buren, the same that you often hear about data centers in general, especially the use of electricity and water. How are you addressing those concerns?

KM: First of all, when we went through the process we got screamed at constantly. Probably like 40 meetings we’ve had where the public has come and spoke. What they don’t know is we listened to them. We heard what they said. And so we brokered a deal on what happens if they cause our water rates to go up. We believe they’ll go down because we have greater sales to disperse our fixed costs over. But there is a scenario where water rates for residents and businesses in our community could go up.

It’s brokered right into our agreement with Google that they will cover any of those cost increases.

As far as electricity, they’re off of our grid. We brokered a deal where they had a 150 generators for power outages. They’re down to 24 generators. They can only last three hours during a power outage and then they have to go dark. They’ve got two different lines that feed them from different sources.

I don’t know how that works, but I do know that the history of those two lines goes back ten years and they’ve never both gone down. We heard the population and we brokered those agreements into it. As for the cost of electricity, I don’t really know at all, but I believe that they have about $350 million dollars that they’re putting down.

They’re guaranteeing 19 years of billing. So when DTE goes out to build these plants, they know they’ve got a customer that has to pay them for 19 years.

QK: The Wayne County Commission had to override a veto from County Executive Warren Evans, which he rarely does, to approve tax incentives for the center. You guys had already approved them. The county exec said he felt Google was rushing the county to try to get the incentives approved. What’s your response to those comments?

KM: I’m not going to speak on behalf of Warren Evans. He made a determination that he thought was right. I can tell you that when a business builds anywhere in a community, they have to follow the zoning laws and they have to follow the codes and the ordinances that are in that community.

Those things aren’t maximum ordinances. Your house might have to be half brick, but you could build all brick if you want.

You don’t have to but you have to at least build half brick. What you end up with if they follow the minimum standards of your community is a baseline data center.

We don’t want that because those are the ones that can cause problems. We want a maximum data center.

We want the next generation quiet cooling towers. We want the next generation generators that run on sulfur-free diesel and they have their own scrubbers on each one of them. We want wildlife corridors, that’s what our people have told us.

They told us they don’t want noise, so we want sound barriers, sound walls, we want maximum setbacks of 450 feet, not the 65 feet they probably would have to do under the minimum.

We want 15-foot-high berms, a $30 million landscape package. You will not see the data center unless you have a drone to get over the 15-foot-high trees that they have to plant that are gonna grow 30 feet.

But you have to understand that you don’t get any of that unless you negotiate the tax incentives. That’s the only thing that a community is left to negotiate. And the Wayne County Commission understood that. They don’t want a baseline data center in their community either. They want the best darn data center they can possibly get that’s quiet, pollution free, and does all those things.

QK: Have you felt rushed at all by Google?

KM: No, in fact this process is longer than usual. Usually a major project would take as long as six months. This has been probably 10 months right now. Every single detail has been gone over and over and over because the population really doesn’t want it.

We’re kind of having to deal with the cards that are dealt to us. You can’t just say no. Every day we are dealing with another issue. We have to take everything they say seriously because God help us if they tell us something that could happen and we didn’t write it into the agreement. Then we are at fault. We have to take everything seriously. Every day we’re working on this.

QK: The major party gubernatorial candidates here in Michigan have both said that they would call for moratoriums on data center development. If you guys have this all approved before any new administration would get into Lansing, would that cover you guys at all?

KM: They can’t have a moratorium on an existing project. Since these people already came in, they couldn’t stop it.

Van Buren Twp. actually has a moratorium on data centers at this time. We put the moratorium after Google came in because we realized that there are a lot of aspects of this that we need to sit down and really hash out. Right now there is a moratorium in Van Buren Twp. on new data centers, but it does not affect any data center that already applied. Which is one.

People just don’t seem to understand how locals look at tax captures sometimes. Yes, we are giving up some of our money. But we’re giving up some of our money to build a premier facility that’ll have low impact on our community. That’s why we gave up some of our money. People in the state think that these tax captures are about competing with other states. To us, that’s not the way it is.

It also adds something that people completely miss that locals understand. If I have a problem with a person that takes a tax capture, Google, for example, because they know it and they’ve even had speeches on it. Say they decide that they’re not bringing quiet cooling towers. Or say they start operating and they’re quiet and all of a sudden they start getting loud.

We’ve negotiated that they have to have continuous sound monitoring on the perimeter. And if it’s coming in loud, the only thing the local community can do is write an ordinance ticket for $500. That’s a joke. I mean they’ll just pay the $500 and they may or may not fix the problem. But if I call them up and tell them, “You’re breaking the ordinance for sound and I’m calling back your $100 million in tax incentives and you’re gonna have to pay it now,” they’re going to fix the problem.

QK: And you would have the authority to do that, to call back the tax incentives?

KM: I have the authority to petition the state. And right now data centers are not exactly loved up there, are they?

The American Pharmacies Group says independent drugstores are closing at an alarming rate across Michigan.

Advocates say the way these stores are reimbursed for the medications they provide is unsustainable.

The stores rely on what’s called Pharmacy Benefits Managers when billing insurance companies the cost of prescriptions they fill.

However, Detroit Pharmacist Mike Nabolsi says that payment often does not cover the full price of the drug.

“We’re getting under reimbursed for something that we bought…something that cost $1,000, we’re giving it to a patient, and we’re getting reimbursed $900. We can’t survive.”

The benefit managers also can determine which drugs would be covered by an insurance program, which often pushes patients to big box pharmacies instead.

The advocacy group American Pharmacies is calling for reform and ensuring savings reach independent stores.

-Reporting by Bre’Anna Tinsley, WDET

Additional Headlines for Oct. 13, 2026

John James wants more governmental say in Michigan’s education system

The Republican nominee for governor is calling for more accountability in Michigan’s education system.

During a campaign stop in metro Detroit, Congressman John James said he wants parents to have a greater voice in kids’ education.

James says—as governor—he’d also want more say in overseeing education.

“l would love to stand here and say hold me accountable for our kids being able to read, when the kindergartners who started this year go into the 4th grade when I’m running for re-election. I can’t say that because right now our state board of education and our superintendents are not accountable to the governor.”

The Michigan constitution puts the state board of education independently in charge of public learning and hiring a state superintendent. Both James and his Democratic opponent – Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson-say they want more resources going toward supporting teachers and students.

-Reporting by Colin Jackson, MPRN

Volunteers needed for Halloween in the D

The city of Detroit is recruiting volunteers for its annual “Halloween in the D” celebration. It started in 2018, offering events and activities for children and families such as trunk-or-treating at police and fire stations and free candy distributed across the city.

Día de los Muertos celebration at Wayne State

Wayne State’s Elaine L. Jacob Gallery is hosting a celebration for Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) next Saturday, Oct. 24. 

The event will include a performance by students of Ballet de Folklorico de Wayne State University, an Ofrenda workshop, flower making, a scavenger hunt and more.

The holiday is celebrated in Mexico and parts of Latin America to honor and remember loved ones who have passed on. Ofrendas on altars are one way to honor the deceased with decorations such as photos, flowers, candles, the favorite foods of the deceased and more.

The event is free and open to the public at 480 W. Hancock Detroit, Michigan 48201.

-Reporting by Angela Martinez, WDET

Mayor Mary Sheffield and Hope Detroit to host coat giveaway

Mayor Mary Sheffield and Hope Detroit are having a coat giveaway this Saturday at Williams Recreation Center, offering free winter coats for toddlers, youth and teens as colder weather approaches. 

The coat giveaway starts at noon on Oct. 17 and is on a first come, first served basis.

Youth must be present to receive a winter coat. Williams Recreation Center is located at 8431 Rosa Parks Dr. Detroit, Michigan 48206. 

-Reporting by Angela Martinez, WDET

Michigan’s secretary of state oversees license renewals, car registrations and elections — the voter rolls, the rules clerks follow, and the certification of results. Jocelyn Benson is term-limited. Two candidates are running to replace her.

Anthony Forlini is the Republican. He’s the Macomb County clerk and register of deeds, and he spent six years in the state House and six as Harrison Township supervisor.

This year Forlini has been looking for noncitizens on Michigan’s voter rolls. In January he said he found 15 in Macomb County. In May he said he found seven more. The state reviewed all 15 names and found at least three of those people are citizens.

A separate state review of the 2024 election found noncitizen voting is extremely rare — 16 ballots out of roughly 5.7 million. Nessel charged five people in August.

The Metro’s Robyn Vincent spoke with Forlini about how rare noncitizen voting is and what he’d do as secretary of state.

Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist II, the Democrat in the race, joins The Metro next week.

Editor’s note: Forlini said noncitizens are turning up for jury duty in Macomb County. People there have claimed not to be citizens to get excused — but whether they are in fact noncitizens is not established.

The jury pool comes from driver’s license records, and Michigan doesn’t require citizenship for a license. Election administrators note that people sometimes claim noncitizenship to avoid jury duty.

He also said 96% of Republicans and Democrats voted for his bills in the Legislature. The Metro has not verified that.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and stream on-demand. Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, NPR, or wherever you get your podcasts

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The citywide coalition MoveDetroit is announcing the first 13 winners of a grant aimed at increasing and stabilizing the city’s population. 

The initial Make Detroit Home awards are worth $15,000 each.

One of the recipients is local entrepreneur Karissma Yve. She says she will use the money to invest in scaling her business. 

“We hire from the city right in our community. We are excited to grow both our factory and the work that we’re doing here…I’m really excited and honored to be able to…invest (it) back into the company, but ultimately (it’s) the investment into the people in the community that we’re hiring from.” 

The coalition will offer another 300 grants of $1,000 each to assist current and future Detroiters with business projects, down payments, home renovations, rent and relocation assistance. 

Additional Headlines for Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026

Free speech survey says Michigan universities don’t make the mark

Multiple Michigan universities got failing grades in a college free speech survey. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) conducted the study for the seventh year.

It found students felt like they can’t speak on controversial topics openly on campus. 
Data analyst Chapin Lenthall-Cleary says university policies, behaviors and student responses were evaluated. 

“Our goal is to protect free speech rights, both on and off campus, for all Americans…for instance, (with) the college free speech rankings…students can have a more informed idea of what the speech climate is at schools they’re considering attending.”

The University of Michigan and Central Michigan University got “F” grades for free speech and Wayne State University got a “D.” 

(This story was edited on October 14, 2026 to correct the name of the source.)

Detroit city council member Gabriela Santiago-Romero asks for data center moratorium

A Detroit city councilmember wants an 18-month moratorium on Al data centers while the city figures out how to regulate the facilities. 

Council Member Gabriela Santiago-Romero has asked council attorneys to draft an interim zoning measure that would pause permitting through March 2028.

Detroit city planners are separately developing zoning rules addressing data center infrastructure and environmental impacts. 

Mayor Mary Sheffield’s administration says it has effectively paused permits for new principal-use data centers while those regulations are being considered but her office has not formally adopted the moratorium previously requested by council. 

20,000 mail-in ballots received by the city less than a month before election

Detroit election officials say about 20,000 absentee ballots have been returned with less than a month remaining before the November election.

The city mailed roughly 100,000 absentee ballots between Sept. 19 and Sept. 24. 

Detroit has 38 absentee ballot drop boxes across the city. Election officials say the early return rate is encouraging as they prepare for the Nov. 3 election. 

Many couldn’t tell you what an attorney general does. But in Michigan, a lot of people know the name Dana Nessel.

She was the lead lawyer in the Michigan case that helped bring marriage equality to the nation. Then she became this state’s top attorney. For eight years she’s been unabashed about her politics and about who she is.

Dana Nessel’s office won convictions against nine clergymen for abuse going back decades. It won more than $1.5 billion from opioid manufacturers. It fought utility companies over the cost of electric bills. And it sued the federal government — many times over.

To some, Nessel’s become one of Michigan’s strongest defenders. To others, she’s gone too far.

A new Michigan law says whoever replaces Nessel in January cannot sue the federal government without permission from state lawmakers. Republican state House Speaker Matt Hall pushed for the law. Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed it.

Attorney General Dana Nessel spoke with host Robyn Vincent about the battles she’s fought and why.

She said her office has contested every utility rate hike request since she took office — roughly $4.7 billion saved for ratepayers, by its own count — and that the system is broken anyway.

Vincent asked how she squares that fight with a governor of her own party who appoints the commissioners  approving those rates, and Nessel she would not have made Whitmer’s appointments to the Michigan Public Service Commission, and that the governor could have reappointed former Commissioner Alessandra Carreon, who Nessel said sometimes deferred to her office’s arguments.

Carreon’s successor, Commissioner Shaquila Myers, was “well known — I’ll just say it — to be in the pocket of DTE,” Nessel said. She added that during Myers’ time as chief of staff to then-House Speaker Joe Tate, bills the utilities opposed “would somehow end up” quashed.

The Metro sought comment from the Public Service Commission and from the governor’s office.

Governor Whitmer’s chief of staff, Zack Pohl, said in a statement: “Shaquila Myers is one of the sharpest policy minds in the state, and she has dedicated her entire career to public service. She is a person of high integrity who is respected on both sides of the aisle.”

The Public Service Commission said in a statement that over more than 20 years in public service, Myers has been chief of staff to the lieutenant governor, a senior adviser to the governor and chief of staff to the speaker of the House. “During her time in the latter role, Michigan enacted a sweeping package of legislation that puts Michigan on a path toward 100% clean energy by 2040,” the statement said. “As she has from the beginning of her time on the MPSC, Commissioner Myers asks to be judged by her work at the Commission, including contributing to Michigan’s best affordability ranking in a decade and to enacting some of the nation’s strongest protections to prevent customers from having to bear any costs associated with data centers. She aims to continue that work during the coming years on the Commission.”

Nessel disputes that last point. In the same interview, she said that under the commission’s approval of power contracts for a Google data center in Van Buren Township, “the ratepayers are absolutely not protected at all.”

After the interview, the commission offered to make Chair Dan Scripps and Commissioner Myers available to appear on WDET. The Metro has invited Myers. 

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with statements from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office and the Michigan Public Service Commission.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and stream on-demand. Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, NPR, or wherever you get your podcasts

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The Michigan Arts and Culture Council is a state agency that distributes grants to creative and cultural projects. 

While the core components of the MACC include economic development, education, and engagement, the group also forms strategies on funding, leadership, resources, outreach and research. The MACC answers to The Michigan Economic  Development Corporation.  

Recently, the MACC cut three positions from its staff. According to Nafeesah Symonette, vice-chair of the MACC board, board members were not notified of any proposed staffing cuts. 

As the grant proposal application opened, the seven person team was reduced by three staffers. Four team members remain. Symonette says 17 people from neighboring states have volunteered to help read and process proposals for the 2027 fiscal year.

The MACC currently distributes $11 million in funding through grants.

Symonette, who is also executive director for Detroit Excellence in Youth Arts, is a leader of the Detroit Partnership for Arts Education.  She says the cuts will directly impact the MACC’s ability to process and distribute grants. We may also see smaller, grass roots and rural organizations shuttering due to the cuts.

She joins The Metro to discuss what happens behind the scenes and the waning interest of arts and culture in Lansing.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and stream on-demand. Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, NPR, or wherever you get your podcasts 

More stories from The Metro

The numbers can tell you what is happening in the economy, but they rarely tell you why. 

For example: among college-educated women in their prime working years, Black women are the most likely to be working or looking for work. Yet they make up about 2% of private-sector managers, according to an analysis from economist Valerie Wilson, published last month by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

In other words, showing up is not the same as moving up.

This week, that institute brought a national conference on women and the economy to Detroit. Journalist Kimberly Adams was there, on a panel about Black women in leadership with Donna Brazile, the Democratic strategist who ran Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign.

Adams is host and senior editor of Marketplace Morning Report. She joined host Robyn Vincent on The Metro to discuss who carries the economy, who gets to lead, and when those two overlap. 

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand. Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or NPR, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have thoughts? Email the show at metro@wdet.org.

More stories from The Metro

One of the most watched races across the country is in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District. That area includes Lansing, East Lansing, and the farm counties and exurbs around them, out to Livingston County and the edge of Oakland County.

Republican Congressman Tom Barrett won the seat two years ago by less than four points, and both parties think it could decide who has a majority in the House of Representatives. Barrett’s opponent is progressive Democrat Will Lawrence. The Metro spoke with him last week.

Barrett spent 22 years in the Army. He was deployed to Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, and served nearly a decade in the state legislature before going to Washington.

Since then he’s done something most Republicans haven’t. Four times, he’s voted to say only Congress can authorize war with Iran, and he’s kept President Donald Trump’s endorsement anyway.

Over the weekend, President Trump rejected an Iranian offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The war has continued, and so has the increasing cost of gas prices.

Congressman Barrett joined The Metro‘s Robyn Vincent to discuss where his positions overlap — and don’t — with President Trump’s, and what his plans are if he’s able to keep his seat.

In the conversation, Congressman Tom Barrett said that over 10 million undocumented immigrants flooded across our border when then-President Joe Biden was in office. 

Research from the conservative Cato Institute estimates that the net increase in the undocumented immigrant population during the Biden administration was closer to about 5.5 million people. That’s because millions of people were expelled, deported or returned to their home country or Mexico before President Donald Trump took office.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand. Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or NPR, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have thoughts? Email the show at metro@wdet.org.

More stories from The Metro

Since Detroit has launched ShotStoppers three years ago, the city has seen a 45% decrease in homicides and nonfatal shootings, according to a University of Michigan analysis.  

ShotStoppers is a community violence intervention program that empowers the community to stop violence in their neighborhoods separate from law enforcement responses. 

The program funds selected community-based organizations known as community violence intervention teams to create intervention plans to address violence in their respective zones. 

Each team gets about $175,000 per quarter to support their efforts. The focus is on areas in Detroit that have historically experienced high levels of gun violence.

Teams can get an additional $175,000 in performance-based bonuses if they successfully reduce gun violence at a higher rate than the city.  

In the rest of the city homicide victimizations have dropped by 12% and nonfatal shooting victimizations have dropped by 26% in within the last year according to the city.  

Additional headlines for Friday, Sept. 25, 2026

Preston Townhomes 

The City of Detroit joined nonprofit development company GenesisHOPE and real estate firm Cinnaire Solutions to celebrate the grand opening of new apartments called Preston Townhomes. This is a $14 million affordable housing development bringing 31 new, high-quality homes to Detroit families.

Jeanine Hatcher is the Executive Director of GenesisHOPE who spearheaded the project. Josh Bails, Development Director of Housing and Revitalization Department shared that Hatcher was adamant about getting as many affordable units as possible.  

“When we do a large apartment building that’s affordable housing, almost all the units end up being studios and one bedrooms, and we claw and we fight for as many two-bedroom units as we can get in a project, and it usually ends up being just a handful. Janine [Hatcher] and her team came into this with a mission and a vision of ‘if we’re going to have affordable housing, we want to have affordable housing for families.’ And that is something that is incredibly difficult to do, but they would not compromise… And to see that many 100% units sized for families in a project is almost unheard of.”

The building is built on the former site of Detroit Eastern High School and transform a once vacant building to necessary housing for the city.  

Sports 

NFL  

The Lions are trying to bounce back from last week’s tough loss to the Buffalo Bills. They face off the New York Jets on Sunday at Ford Field. Kickoff is at 1 p.m.

MLB 
The Tigers face off against the Pittsburgh Pirates this weekend as they try to climb out the American League Central. They are currently second to last in their division. 

Soccer
Detroit City FC face off against Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC at Keyworth Stadium. Game starts at 7 p.m. 

Coffee Week

For all of our Caffeine junkies, today marks the start of Dearborn’s third annual Coffee Week. Going down from Friday, Sept. 25 to Friday, Oct. 2, these seven days celebrate way more than coffee—art, culture, and community as well.

According to organizers, coffee shops will host activations and there will be fun activities scattered throughout the week.

Listen to the latest episode of the “Detroit Evening Report” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

For more than a decade, a group of Detroiters worked toward something the city was lacking: there were almost no Black-owned grocery stores. So they set out to build one — owned by the people it serves.

In 2024, the Detroit People’s Food Co-op opened on Woodward in the North End.

Two years later, it is asking for help. The co-op says it is bringing in close to $3 million a year. Before it opened, it projected about $80,000 a week — more than $4 million. 

This month it launched a campaign to recruit 500 new owners and asked shoppers to spend $10 more every time they come in. They named it Mframadan, a symbol from Ghana for a house built to withstand treacherous conditions.

Those conditions are real — food prices keep climbing and many of the people this store was built for are the ones with the least to spare. U.S. Census Bureau data shows 34% of Detroiters live in poverty.

The co-op’s thought was that Detroiters should own their food system, not just shop within it. Two years in, the question is whether that’s something people can afford to own.

Lanay Gilbert-Williams, president of the Detroit People’s Food Co-op and executive director of the Detroit Food Policy Council, joined Robyn Vincent to discuss what supporting a co-op means for a community, some of the store’s higher prices in comparison to chain grocers, and who is actually shopping there.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand. Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or NPR, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have thoughts? Email the show at metro@wdet.org.

More stories from The Metro

Ypsilanti Township officials passed a 180 day moratorium on major electrical infrastructure in a continued effort to pause plans by the University of Michigan and Los Alamos National Laboratory to build a high-performance computing center. 

The University of Michigan wants to build on a 144-acre area along Textile Road.

Ypsilanti Township officials say they weren’t fully informed about the size and details of the project when the university first reached out.

Ypsilanti Township supervisor Brenda Stumbo says local officials have little say over the University of Michigan’s plans. 

“The University of Michigan doesn’t have to go through local government planning, fire safety checks, or building permits because they’re legally exempt from these rules. They also don’t pay taxes to the communities where they’re located,” Stumbo says. 

Records show the university bought nearly 20 acres at 10221 Textile Road in October 2024 for a “future computing center,” and in June 2025, they bought about 125 acres at 10455 and 10635 Textile Road for more computing facilities.

Township legal advisor Doug Winters said local officials only learned the full scope of the project in July 2025, when the university revealed plans for two large computing centers, including one linked to Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The township’s new pause on construction aims to give officials time to see if current land rules are enough to handle a project of this size, especially since it will need a lot of electrical power.

“Right now, we need to review whether our land-use rules match what this project requires,” Winters said. “We’re doing our homework. A 180 day pause is a reasonable amount of time.”

The university says the first phase of the facility will use about 50 megawatts of electricity, with plans to eventually reach 100 megawatts. The site would have its own substation from DTE Energy. The university argues that the center would use less than one-tenth the electricity of a typical commercial data center and it should be seen as a scientific research facility, not a commercial one.

Town officials are still worried about possible impacts on wetlands, wildlife, the nearby Huron River, noise, heat, stormwater runoff, and nearby neighborhoods.

Is money corrupting Michigan’s politics?

According to a Politico poll, 72% of Americans say there’s too much money in politics. Respondents said special interest spending leads to corruption that should be restricted. 

In Michigan, a local campaign believes residents can have a stronger, more representative democracy if political spending by some big-time actors is limited.

The Michiganders for Money Out of Politics measure, which is now on the November ballot, would change some aspects of how money gets into the hands of politicians and political candidates. 

Voters decide Nov. 3, though opponents have asked the Michigan Supreme Court to block it.

Sean McBrearty is the executive committee co-chair for the Michiganders for Money out of Politics campaign.  He spoke with producer and host Robyn Vincent about what happens if the ballot measure passes.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

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Michigan is in the national spotlight. 

That’s in part because of the state’s open U.S. Senate seat. If Democrats lose, their path to a Senate majority all but closes.

The race can tell us a lot about the direction of the Democratic Party — what is seen as acceptable to voters, and what appears too extreme. 

That’s because trends here represent things happening elsewhere, in places where manufacturing is declining but still deemed important, where wages are stagnating, and where younger people are leaving in hopes of finding greener pastures in other states. 

So, how should we be looking at the Senate race between Dr. Abdul El-Sayed and Mike Rogers? What does it tell us about the politics of the median Michigan voter? And what does it say about the kinds of politics that are possible. 

Adrian Hemond is the CEO of the bipartisan advocacy firm, Grassroots Midwest. He’s also a longtime Democrat. He spoke with The Metro‘s Sam Corey.

Editor’s Note: In this conversation, Adrian Hemond said Dr. Abdul El-Sayed has associated with people who have committed acts of antisemitism. He did not name anyone on air, and we did not press him to at the time. We should have. WDET asked Hemond afterward for specifics and reviewed what he provided. None of it involved conduct by Dr. El-Sayed, and we found no evidence supporting the claim as stated. We should not have let it air unchallenged.

An earlier version of this note included material that did not meet our editorial standards.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or NPR or wherever you get your podcasts.

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